It is often customary for a patron of a restaurant, bar, or other establishment having a service provider to give a gratuity or a tip to the service provider. For example, food and cocktail servers, hair stylists, and other personal service providers often receive a tip directly from the party they are serving. Historically, the tip is an amount equal to a percentage of the total bill amount. The tip amount generally ranges from ten to twenty percent of the total bill amount, with fifteen and twenty percent being the most common tip percentage amounts.
Difficulty can arise when a dining patron, presented with the bill, must perform a mathematical computation to determine the proper tip amount. Although some individuals can easily calculate the percentage of a number, others have a much more difficult time. This is especially true when the percentage amount to be calculated is not a multiple of five, i.e. ten, fifteen or twenty percent. In addition, many dining patrons are uncomfortable performing a possibly embarrassing mathematical computation in front of a table full of dining guests. Likewise, the service provider is always appreciative of being given the proper tip amount, especially since many individuals tip too low if they do not know the proper amount to give.
Other methods and devices are known which could provide relief to those calculating tips, but none of these methods and devices have worked satisfactory. A common calculator, having a wide array of functions and buttons, suffers from being too complicated for most dining patrons to master in a short, single use experience. Similarly, multi-function calculators are too expensive for widespread use such as being enclosed in each restaurant check folio.
Another option would be to provide a writing implement and paper for the dining patron so that they may perform the calculation long hand. However, this option still requires the diner to perform mathematical calculations, an unpleasant or impossible option for many. Further these methods do not always provide accurate results.
Finally, others have proposed using a chart showing the corresponding tip amount for various bill amounts. However, this suffers from the drawback of not always presenting the bill amount on the chart, or alternatively, not providing the data for the percentage that the diner feels is appropriate. Finally, if all the required information is provided, the print becomes small and unreadable or the document becomes unreasonably large and bulky.